This blog is intended to provide the reader with important world news with an emphasis on Middle East and North Africa. It will publish news, analyses, comments, and opinions concerning those two regions. However, We welcome any comments, news or opinions which are related to their countries. You can visit too www.asswak-alarab.com for more information.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Moscow Concerned…About The Syrian Army

By Hassan Haidar

The
visit of Russian Envoy Bogdanov to Damascus to convey Medvedev’s urgent request
to see Bashar al-Assad immediately pulling out the military units from the
Syrian cities, leading them back to the barracks, discontinuing the violence
against the demonstrators and setting a timetable for the reforms, coincided
with the escalation of the divisions within the ranks of the Syrian army,
although this defection is still limited and rarely includes high-ranking
officers. Still, they are enough to concern the Russian ally, whose military
experts deployed on the Syrian soil are conveying a pessimistic image of the
situation and warning against the expansion of the disgruntlement and the
military rebellion which could quickly turn into a civil confrontation.

The
Russian message did not mark a change in Moscow’s quasi-absolute support of
Al-Assad. But in addition to it being an attempt to eliminate the weak points
affecting its defense of the Syrian president – especially in international
forums – and lift the embarrassment whenever it refuses to condemn the killings
and arrests he is undertaking, it relays Russia’s increasing concerns toward
the excessive use of the armed forces, knowing that the continuation of the
Russians’ presence and influence in this country are linked to these forces’
unity, stability and armament.

In
reality, the mobile military campaign carried out by the Syrian army to deter
the opposition’s actions in the main cities and in the countryside, is
revealing its weak points and exposing it to several possibilities. At this
level, many cases of defection were registered during the past week in Deir
ez-Zor, Idlib, the Rif, Homs and on the outskirts of Damascus, at a time when
the nucleus of the “free officers” organization started surfacing for the first
time ever. Other cases of defection had been registered at the beginning of the
uprising but were immediately nipped in the bud. Those behind them were
liquidated and the “armed men” were said to have been responsible for this
liquidation, just as it happened in Daraa.

Although
the regime has so far chosen to rely on selected units whose loyalty is
guaranteed to carry out the major military operations, it cannot continue
deploying them and moving them between the regions once it becomes clear that
the orders issued to them to shoot the unarmed demonstrators are threatening
their unity and increasing the possibility of the elements’ refusal to move
forward when they figure out they are not fighting “armed gangs.”

As
for the use of the Syrian army to carry out internal repression, it is a
double-edged sword. This is firstly due to the fact that this army’s permanent
deployment – when there are no demonstrations – means a daily contact with the
people, i.e. their families, which will alleviate the impact of ideological
mobilization and the one based on sloganeering to which they are constantly
subjected when in the barracks. This is especially true when it turns out that
the “orders” issued to them to deter “the terrorists” do not rely on accurate
information, thus pushing toward additional defections and rebellions. It is
secondly due to the fact that while the overreliance on the army to protect the
regime and prevent its collapse has been fruitful, it will mean that the
political institution might later on find itself in a weak position vis-à-vis
the armed forces after it used to lead them. In other words, if the army saves
the regime from the people now, who will save the regime from the army later
on? This features the possibility of seeing Syria return to the times of
consecutive military coups that were witnessed in the fifties and sixties.

And
while the Syrian regime is wagering on time to muzzle the opposition and stop
the protests, the opposition is also wagering on that same factor to induce
change at the level of the military institution’s behavior, thus leading to its
neutralization, or at the very least to the retreat of its involvement in the
defense of the regime, and give it options other than the blind upholding of
the one-party theory.

About Me

I graduated from the French University in Beirut (St Joseph) specialising in Political and Economic Sciences. I started my working life in 1973 as a reporter and journalist for the pan-Arab magazine “Al-Hawadess” in Lebanon later becoming its Washington, D.C. correspondent. I subsequently moved to London in 1979 joining “Al-Majallah” magazine as its Deputy Managing Editor. In 1984 joined “Assayad” magazine in London initially as its Managing Editor and later as Editor-in-Chief. Following this, in 1990 I joined “Al-Wasat” magazine (part of the Dar-Al-Hayat Group) in London as a Managing Editor. In 2011 I became the Editor-In-Chief of Miraat el-Khaleej (Gulf Mirror). In July 2012 I became the Chairman of The Board of Asswak Al-Arab Publishing Ltd in UK and the Editor In Chief of its first Publication "Asswak Al-Arab" Magazine (Arab Markets Magazine) (www.asswak-alarab.com).

I have already authored five books. The first “The Tears of the Horizon” is a love story. The second “The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf” (1991) focuses on the first Gulf war sparked by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. His third book is entitled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From Balfour Promise to Bush Declaration: The Complications and the Road to a Lasting Peace” (March 2008). The fourth book is titled “How Iran Plans to Fight America and Dominate the Middle East” (October 2008) And the fifth and the most recent is titled "JIHAD'S NEW HEARTLANDS: Why The West Has Failed To Contain Islamic Fundamentalism" (May 2011).

Furthermore, I wrote the memoirs of national security advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, Mr Robert McFarlane, serializing them in “Al-Wasat” magazine over 14 episodes in 1992.

Over the years, I have interviewed and met several world leaders such as American President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Margaret Thacher, Late King Hassan II of Morocco, Late King Hussein of Jordan,Tunisian President Zein El-Abedine Bin Ali, Lybian Leader Moammar Al-Quadhafi,President Amine Gemayel of Lebanon,late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, Haitian President Jean Claude Duvalier, Late United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan,Algerian President Shazli Bin Jdid, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Siyagha and more...